Landlord and Tenant Act 1954, Part II
- Section 23 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 states that Part II applies to any tenancy where the tenant occupies the premises for the purpose of carrying on a business. The term "business" includes any trade, profession or employment.
- The Landlord and Tenant Act aimed to provide business tenants with security of tenure. At that time, certain landlords were exploiting their position by dramatically increasing rents upon the expiry of a tenant's lease. If the tenant then chose to leave the premises, he would lose both stock and goodwill. Part II of the act, therefore, provided that if a landlord granted a business tenancy for six months or more, the tenant could continue the tenancy on substantially the same terms after the lease ended. In the event of a dispute relating to the rent, either the landlord or tenant could ask the courts to decide on a fair market rent. Neither the landlord nor the tenant were allowed to contract out of this obligation, except in limited circumstances.
- Under the Landlord and Tenant Act, a landlord could only regain possession of his property at the end of a lease in certain circumstances. These included where the tenant persistently failed to pay the rent or substantially breached any of his obligations under the lease. The landlord could also regain possession if he intended to occupy the premises himself.
- Section 5 of the Law of Property, Miscellaneous Provisions, Act 1969 permitted a landlord to apply to court to exclude the security of tenure provisions. Further reforms to the 1954 act came into force in 2004 and these chiefly related to the process of fixing the rent at the end of the tenancy. The 2004 reforms also stated that security of tenure would no longer apply if the tenant ceased to occupy the premises for business purposes.